JP2003187057A - Electronic name card exchanging system and information apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To acquire an image when image data is not added to received name card data when exchanging the name card data. <P>SOLUTION: This electronic name card exchanging system exchanges the name card data including an individual name, an address, and a contact address between a plurality of information apparatuses 1 and 8 connected by radio transmission or a cable, and has image data acquiring means 3 and 10 for acquiring image data corresponding to the name card data from an image data list made by retrieving the image data stored in the plurality of information apparatuses when the image data is not added to the received name card data. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic business card exchange system and information equipment for exchanging personal information between information equipment such as PDAs (personal digital assistants) and electronic cameras.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in the exchange of electronic business cards performed by an electronic business card exchange application installed in a PDA or the like, in general, only text data such as name, company name, contact information, etc. is often used, and the face image The image data such as the above was not included. Therefore, if the operator wants to add image data to the business card data, it is necessary for the operator to exchange the data with the image data prepared, and then to associate the business card data with the image data, which makes the operation complicated. There was a problem.

Further, the information device on the receiver side does not know whether or not the image data is added at the time of receiving the business card data, and further, when the image data is not added to the received business card data, the reception is performed. There is a problem that the device on the person side does not have a means for requesting or acquiring image data corresponding to the business card data from the device on the sender side.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and when exchanging business card data, it is possible to obtain an image when image data is not added to the received business card data. An object is to provide an electronic business card exchange system and an information device.

[0005]

In order to solve the above problems, the electronic business card exchange system according to claim 1 includes personal names, addresses, contacts, etc. among a plurality of information devices connected by wireless or wire. In the electronic business card exchange system for exchanging business card data, if no image data is added to the received business card data, the list of image data created by searching the image data stored in multiple information devices And an image data acquisition unit for acquiring image data corresponding to the business card data.

[0006] The information equipment according to claim 6 is provided with communication means capable of transmitting and receiving data wirelessly or by wire, and the name of an individual,
In an information device for exchanging business card data including addresses, contacts, etc. on the electronic business card exchange system according to any one of claims 1 to 5, image data such as a face photograph is added to the received business card data. If the image data is not added to the received business card data, the business card data determination means for determining whether or not the image data stored in the information device on the receiving side and / or the transmitting side is searched. An image data acquisition unit that acquires image data corresponding to the business card data from a list of created image data, and a business card data storage unit that stores the acquired image data and business card data in a pair. And

According to the above configuration, when the business card data is received,
The information device on the receiving side determines whether or not image data is added, and if the image data is not added, the image data stored in the information device is searched, and business card data is created from the created image data list. It is possible to select and acquire corresponding image data.

In the image data acquisition means, the image data is searched in the order of the receiving side information equipment, the information equipment wire-connected to the receiving side information equipment, and the information equipment wirelessly connected to the receiving side information equipment. By acquiring the image data corresponding to the business card data from the created image data list and changing the image acquisition sequence according to the connection status of the information device, the image acquisition that is adaptive to the connection status can be performed. Is possible.

[0009]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION An embodiment of the present invention will be described below. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an electronic business card exchange system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The information device 1 on the electronic business card exchange system according to the present embodiment mainly comprises business card data discriminating means 2, image data acquiring means 3, business card data managing means 4, communication means 5, display section 6, and operating section 7. Etc.

The business card data discriminating means 2 discriminates whether or not image data is added to the business card data received from the communication means 5. Also, the image data acquisition means 3
When the business card data to which the image data is not added is received, the image data is searched for in the procedure described below, and the image data list is created. Business card data management means 4
Is to store the received business card data and the acquired image data in association with each other. The communication unit 5 performs data communication with an external information device and controls the data communication, and transmits and receives business card data, searches image data, acquires image data, and the like.
This is done via the communication means of each information device. The display unit 6 is a display unit such as a liquid crystal display, and displays texts and images such as GUI images of electronic business card exchange applications. The operation unit 7 is various operation switches including a power switch, and inputs to information equipment are executed.
In the illustrated example, the information device 8 has the same internal configuration as the information device 1.
Shows the state of being connected. In addition, as a method for connecting the information device, there are serial connection, wired connection such as USB, and wireless connection such as infrared ray and Bluetootth, but data connection is possible with any connection.

Next, the operation of the electronic business card exchange system according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. This flow chart shows a procedure in the case where the information device A and the information device B are wirelessly connected and the business card data is transmitted from the information device A to the information device B. In FIG. 1, the information device 1 is the transmitting side (A) and the information device 2 is the receiving side (B).

First, the information device A establishes a connection between the information devices AB so as to transmit the business card data to the information device B. After the connection is established, the information device A transmits business card data (step S101). The business card data transmitted from the communication means 5 is received by the communication means 12 of the information device B (step S102).

When the business card data is received, the business card data discriminating means 9 of the information device B discriminates whether or not image data is added to the received business card data (step S10).
3). When it is determined that the image data is not added to the business card data, the image data detecting means 10 first searches the image data stored in the receiving side (that is, the information device B itself) (step S104). At this time, information device B
All the image data stored in the memory (not shown) may be searched, or only the designated directory may be searched. When designating a directory, for example, a directory in which image data associated with business card data is stored or a directory in which a face image of a person is stored may be designated.

When image data is confirmed in the information device B, an image data list is created for these image data (step S105). The image data list is
For example, it is composed of the name of each image data and its minute image (thumbnail) image. If the image data is not confirmed or the creation of the image data list is completed, then the image data stored in the information device connected to the information device B by wire is searched (step S106). When image data is confirmed in the information device connected by wire, an image data list is created for the image data (step S107). In the connection example of FIG. 1, since there is no wired information device, the image data list is not created and the process proceeds to the next step.

Next, the image data stored in the information device wirelessly connected to the information device B is searched (step S10).
8). When image data is confirmed in the wirelessly connected information device, an image data list is created for the image data (step S109). In the connection example of FIG. 1, since the information device A (transmission side) is wirelessly connected, the image data stored in the information device A is searched.
At this time, all the directories in the memory (not shown) of the information device A may be searched, or only a specified part of the directories may be referred to.

It is confirmed whether or not there is image data in the image data list created by the above three search (step S
110), if there is image data, display a list,
A dialog that prompts the user to select an image corresponding to the received business card data is displayed (step S111). The operator confirms whether or not image data such as a face image of a person corresponding to the business card data is in the list (step S112), and if there is, selects the image (thumbnail image) (step S113). The business card data management unit 11 acquires the image data from the storage location of the selected image (step S114). For example, when the image data is in the information device A, the business card data management means 11 of the information device B uses the communication means 12 and the communication means 5 of the information device A to transfer the image data from the directory in which the image data is stored in the memory. To get. The acquired image data is stored in the information device B in association with the business card data (step S115).

If the image data is not confirmed in step S110 (that is, if the image data list is not created) or there is no corresponding image data in step S112, a dialog prompting generation of image data is displayed. (Step S116), the operator selects whether to newly create image data (Step S117). For example, when the information device B is equipped with a camera for image capturing, a message prompting the user to capture an image is displayed. Therefore, when an image of the operator of the information device A that is the sender of the business card data is captured on the spot ( Step S118),
The generated image data and the business card data are associated with each other and stored in the information device B (step S115). On the other hand, when the image data is not created, if the saving of the business card data is selected (step S119), the business card data without the image data is saved (step S120). If the image data is added to the business card data in the determination in step S103, the process directly proceeds to step S115 to store the business card data and the image data in association with each other. This completes the storage of the business card data transmitted from the information device A to the information device B.

Next, the receiving side and the transmitting side are automatically exchanged, the business card data is transmitted from the information device B to the information device A in the same manner, and the electronic business card exchange between the information device A and the information device B is performed. finish. Note that the procedure for transmitting the business card data from the information device B to the information device A is the same as the above-described procedure for FIG.

By the way, in wireless connection such as Bluetooth,
Not only one-to-one (two) but three or more information devices can be connected simultaneously. For example, the schematic diagram of FIG. 3 shows a state in which four information devices (C, D, E, F) are simultaneously connected. (A) is a case in which business card data without image data is transmitted from the information device C to the information device D, and the information device D is an image in the wirelessly connected three (C, E, F) information devices. Try to retrieve data and create image data list. On the other hand, (b) is a case of transmitting business card data without image data from the information device D to the information device F.
Also tries to create an image data list by searching for image data in three wirelessly connected information devices (C, D, E). In this way, the four information devices create the same image data list in each information device, which is time-consuming and inefficient. In this case, 4
It is possible to efficiently acquire the image data by deciding one of the tables as the host and holding the image data list common to the hosts.

Next, a method of creating an image data list when three or more information devices are simultaneously connected will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 4 and the schematic diagram of FIG. Figure 5
[Fig. 4] is a schematic diagram of a case where four units are connected simultaneously.

First, the host device is specified (step S201). This identification may be performed by performing a special operation on one of the information devices and issuing a signal,
The information device that first transmitted the business card data may be set as the host. Next, the number of connections of information devices other than the host is grasped (step S202). The number of connections is
For example, it may be counted by a response signal returned in response to the reception of the business card data.

Next, the image data in the information equipment that has become the host is searched (step S203). At this time, all the image data stored in the memory of the information device may be searched, or only the designated directory may be searched. When designating a directory, for example, a directory in which image data associated with business card data is stored or a directory in which a face image of a person is stored may be designated.

When image data is confirmed in the host, an image data list is created for those image data (step S204). The image data list includes, for example, the name of each image data and its minute image (thumbnail) image. If the image data is not confirmed or the creation of the image data list is completed, the image data stored in all the information devices wirelessly connected to the host is searched (step S205). When image data is confirmed in the wirelessly connected information device, an image data list is created for these image data (step S206). At this time, all the directories in the memory of the connected information equipment may be searched, or only a part of the designated directories may be referenced. As shown in FIG. 5A, the information device G set as the host searches for image data in the three connected information devices, collects the image data information, and creates an image data list. .

As described above, the image data list created by searching the image data for all information devices is stored in the host (step S207). This image data list is a list of image data stored in all four information devices G, H, J, and K.

Next, an electronic business card exchange method when the host is specified will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. This flowchart shows the procedure when the business card data is transmitted from any one information device among the simultaneously connected information devices to the other information devices. Figure 5
Then, in (b), from the host information device G to the information device H,
(C) shows a situation in which business card data is transmitted from the information device H to the information device K. It is assumed that the connection between the information devices has already been established.

First, the business card data is transmitted from the information device of the transmission source (step S301). The transmitted business card data is received by another information device (step S
302).

When the business card data is received, the business card data discriminating means of the receiving side information equipment discriminates whether or not image data is added to the received business card data (step S30).
3). When it is determined that the image data is not added to the business card data, the image data detection unit refers to the image data list in the information device of the host, not the receiving side (main body) or the transmission source (step S304). . For example, in FIG.
In the case of (b), since the transmission source of the host and the business card data is the same information device G, the image data list is acquired from the information device G and displayed. On the other hand, in the case of FIG. 5C, the transmission source of the business card data is the information device H, but the host is the information device G. Therefore, the image data list is acquired from the information device G and displayed.

It is confirmed whether or not there is image data in the acquired image data list (step S305). If there is image data, the list is displayed and a dialog prompting the user to select an image corresponding to the received business card data is displayed. It is displayed (step S306). The operator confirms whether or not image data such as a face image of a person corresponding to the business card data is in the list (step S307), and if there is, selects the image (thumbnail image) (step S308). The business card data management means 11 acquires the image data concerned from the storage location of the selected image (step S309). For example, in FIG. 5B, when the image data corresponding to the business card data received from the information device G exists in the information device J, the business card data management means of the information device H causes the image data in the memory of the information device J to be changed. Get image data from a directory. The acquired image data is stored in the information device H in association with the business card data (step S310).

When the image data cannot be confirmed in the image data list (that is, when the image data list is not created) or when there is no corresponding image in S307, a dialog prompting generation of image data is displayed ( In step S311), the operator selects whether to newly create image data (step S312). For example, in FIG. 5C, when the information device K is equipped with a camera for capturing an image, a message prompting the user to capture an image is displayed. Therefore, the operator of the information device H that is the source of the business card data on the spot. When the image of is captured (step S313),
The generated image data and the business card data are associated with each other and stored in the information device B (step S314). On the other hand, when the image data is not created, if the saving of the business card data is selected (step S315), the business card data without the image data is saved (step S316). If image data is added to the business card data in the determination in step S303, the process directly proceeds to step S314 to store the business card data and the image data in association with each other. This completes the storage of the business card data transmitted from any one information device to the other information device.

Next, the receiving side and the transmitting side are automatically exchanged, the business card data in the reverse direction are similarly transmitted and received, and the electronic business card exchange is completed. The procedure of transmitting and receiving the business card data in the reverse direction is the same as the procedure described above with reference to FIG.

It is needless to say that any device can be the host because the identification of the host is for efficiently obtaining the image data.

[0033]

As described above, according to the present invention, when the business card data is received, the information device on the receiving side determines whether or not the image data is added. If the image data is not added, the image stored in the information device is displayed. It is possible to search the data and select and obtain the image data corresponding to the business card data from the created image data list.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a business card exchange system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an operation of the information device on the electronic business card exchange system according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing a search direction of image data when four band information devices in the electronic business card exchange system according to the embodiment of the present invention are simultaneously connected and a host is not set.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing a method of creating an image data list when three or more information devices on the electronic business card exchange system according to the embodiment of the present invention are simultaneously connected to set a host.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing a search direction of the image data list when four hosts are set by simultaneously connecting four information devices on the electronic business card exchange system according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an electronic business card exchange method when three or more information devices on the electronic business card exchange system according to the embodiment of the present invention are simultaneously connected to set a host.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Information equipment (A: sender) 2 Business card data discriminating means (A: sending side) 3 Image data acquisition means (A: sender) 4 Business card data management means (A: sender) 5 Communication means (A: sender) 6 Display (A: Sending side) 7 Operation part (A: Sending side) 8 Information equipment (B: receiving side) 9 Business card data discrimination means (B: receiving side) 10 Image data acquisition means (B: receiving side) 11 Business card data management means (B: receiving side) 12 Communication means (B: receiving side) 13 Display (B: Receiving side) 14 Operation part (B: receiving side)

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. An electronic business card exchange system for exchanging business card data including an individual's name, address, contact information, etc. between a plurality of information devices connected wirelessly or by wire, and image data is added to the received business card data. If not, an image data acquisition unit for acquiring image data corresponding to the business card data from a list of image data created by searching image data stored in a plurality of information devices is provided. A unique electronic business card exchange system. 2. The image data acquisition means is a receiving side information device, an information device wiredly connected to the receiving side information device,
2. The image data is searched for in the order of the information device wirelessly connected to the information device on the receiving side, and the image data corresponding to the business card data is acquired from the created image data list. Electronic business card exchange system described in. 3. When three or more information devices are connected at the same time, the image data acquisition means of an arbitrary information device set as a host (hereinafter referred to as a host) is the host and all other information devices. 3. The electronic business card exchange system according to claim 2, wherein image data is searched and an image data list of all information devices is created in the host. 4. When no image data is added to the received business card data, the image data acquisition means of the information device other than the host refers to the image data list in the host, not in the information device on the business card data transmitting side. The electronic business card exchange system according to claim 3, wherein the corresponding image data is acquired by performing the process. 5. The image data acquisition means according to claim 1, wherein when the corresponding image data is not retrieved, the image data acquisition means prompts generation of new corresponding image data. Electronic business card exchange system. 6. The electronic device according to claim 1, further comprising communication means capable of transmitting and receiving data wirelessly or by wire, and exchanging business card data including an individual's name, address, contact information and the like. In the information device performed on the business card exchange system, business card data determining means for determining whether or not image data such as a face photograph is added to the received business card data, and no image data is added to the received business card data. In this case, an image data acquisition unit that acquires image data corresponding to the business card data from a list of image data created by searching the image data stored in the information device on the reception side and / or the transmission side, An information device comprising: a business card data storage unit that stores the acquired image data and business card data in a pair.